Harvey Pitcher


Harvey Pitcher is an English writer, historian and translator. He was born in London, and attended Merchant Taylors' School. During his National Service, he studied Russian at the Joint Services School of Linguists, qualifying as an interpreter. Afterwards, he read Russian at St John's College, Oxford, graduating in 1960 with First Class Honours.
He taught Russian at the University of Glasgow from 1961 to 1963, when he was asked to start the Russian department at the University of St Andrews. He stayed at St Andrews till 1971. He then took early retirement to concentrate on his writing, moving to Cromer on the Norfolk coast where he has lived ever since.
Pitcher published his first book in 1964. His two interests are Anton Chekhov and the British expatriate community in pre-revolutionary Russia. He wrote a biography of Chekhov's wife, the actress Olga Knipper. He co-translated Chekhov's early stories with Patrick Miles; this volume was later published in the Oxford World's Classics series. He wrote an account of English governesses in Russia, titled When Miss Emmie was in Russia, reprinted in 2011 by Eland Books. He also wrote The Smiths of Moscow and Muir & Mirrieless .

Selected works

Books

  1. Understanding the Russians
  2. The Chekhov Play: A New Interpretation
  3. Chuckle with Chekhov
  4. When Miss Emmie was in Russia: English Governesses before, during and after the October Revolution
  5. Chekhov's Leading Lady: A Portrait of the Actress Olga Knipper
  6. The Smiths of Moscow
  7. Lily: An Anglo-Russian Romance
  8. Myur i Meriliz: Shotlandtsy v Rossii, Moscow, 1993
  9. Muir & Mirrielees: The Scottish Partnership that became a Household Name in Russia
  10. Witnesses of the Russian Revolution
  11. Responding to Chekhov: The Journey of a Lifetime
  12. The Origin Of Us, Edited and introduced by

    Plays and Stage Adaptations

  13. First Night: play to commemorate centenary of the Moscow Art Theatre production of The Seagull, performed by Iain Marshall at the Auden Theatre, Holt
  14. Chekhov's Comic Twists: programme of early stories translated and adapted for the stage by Harvey Pitcher, and the one-act farce The Bear, translated and adapted by Patrick Miles, Little Theatre, Sheringham, 18–20 November 2010

    Major Translations

  15. Chekhov: The Early Stories 1883–88, translated by Patrick Miles and Harvey Pitcher
  16. Chekhov: The Comic Stories, translated by Harvey Pitcher
  17. If Only We Could Know! An Interpretation of Chekhov, by Vladimir Kataev, translated and edited by Harvey Pitcher

    Articles, Papers, Book Chapters

  18. "A Scottish View of Catherine's Russia: William Richardson's ‘Anecdotes of the Russian Empire’ ”, Forum for Modern Language Studies, vol.III, No.3, July 1967, pp.236–251
  19. “Governess to Tanya Tolstoy”, Illustrated London News, September 1978, pp. 77–79
  20. “Chekhov's Humour”, in A Chekhov Companion, ed.Clyman, Greenwood Press, 1985, pp. 87–103
  21. “Chekhov and the English Governess: The Prototype of Charlotta Ivanovna in The Cherry Orchard”, Oxford Slavonic Papers, vol.xx, 1987, pp. 101–109; Russian translation in Chekhoviana, Moscow, 1990, pp. 158–166
  22. “From a Tutor's Journal: An Introduction to the Life and Career of David Ker ”, Scottish Slavonic Review, vol.10, 1988, pp. 165–176
  23. “Chekhov as a Humanist”, The Ethical Record, February 1994, pp. 3–6
  24. “1917: The Myth and the Reality”, The Ethical Record, June 1995, pp. 3–7
  25. “E. Pitcher & Co. ”, Antiquarian Horology, Winter 1996, pp. 151–155
  26. “Kommentarii k fotografiyam Lili Glassbi”, Chekhoviana, Moscow, 2005, pp. 99–104
  27. “Chekhov's Last Moments”: memoir by L.L.Rabenek, Posledniye minuty Chekhova, first published in Vozrozhdeniye, translated and with an introduction by Harvey Pitcher, Times Literary Supplement, 2 July 2004; reprinted North American Chekhov Society Bulletin, Autumn 2005; original Russian text with an introduction by Harvey Pitcher, Chekhoviana, Moscow, 2005, pp. 566–577
  28. "From the Memoirs of a Literary Detective: An Unsolved Case”: Russian translation in Dialog s Chekhovym, 70th birthday volume in honour of V. B. Kataev
  29. "The White Datcha, 1990"
  30. Entries for Andrew Muir, Archibald Mirrielees and Walter Philip, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004